Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Spain
Date of decision:

The Court found a violation of Article 8, in a groundbreaking case regarding children’s right to a birth certificate. The applicant was born in Mexico and repatriated to Spain after an earthquake. Despite his mother’s attempts, his birth was not registered upon arrival in Spain as the necessary documentation had been destroyed by the earthquake in Mexico, and he was issued with an ID card only at 21. The Court found that, upon becoming aware of the situation, Spanish authorities were under a positive obligation to assist the applicant in obtaining documentation and the failure to do so resulted in a violation of Article 8 ECHR.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Poland
Date of decision:

The applicants are the twin children of an Israeli same-sex couple, born through surrogacy i nthe United States. The case concerns the non-recognition of paternity of the applicants for civil registry and nationality purposes in Poland, whose legal system does not recognise surrogacy. In analysing the applications lodged against Poland regarding the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8) and the prohibition of discrimination (Article 14), the Court considered that given the children lived with one biological and one non-biological parent in Israel, had access to fundamental rights there and held dual nationality, Article 8 was not applicable, and hence Article 14 did not apply in conjunction with Article 8 either. Thus, the applications were inadmissible.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Italy
Date of decision:

The Italian authorities refused to transcribe the applicant's Ukrainian birth certificate, either in full or in part. The applicant, who was born through gestational surrogacy in Ukraine, was consequently denied a legal parent-child relationship with her intended parents under Italian law, as well as any nationality. The Court ruled that the Italian authorities' refusal to transcribe the birth certificate, even in part, prevented the establishment of a legal parent-child relationship between the applicant and her biological father, which was in contradiction with Article 8 ECHR.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Azerbaijan
Date of decision:

The authorities in Azerbaijan terminated the nationality of an independent journalist and chairman of an NGO for the protection of journalists, rendering him stateless. The Court found that such measure had been arbitrary and in violation of Article 8 ECHR, given that it rendered the applicant stateless, in disregard for the 1961 Convention, and was not accompanied by due procedural safeguards. In the particular circumstances of the case, for the purposes of examining the arbitrariness of the decision terminating the applicant’s nationality, the Court did not consider it necessary to establish whether the applicant’s renunciation of his nationality was forced or voluntary, which was a matter in dispute between the parties.

Court name: Cour de cassation
State: France
Date of decision:

The case concerns the challenge before the French Court of Cassation (Cour de Cassation) of a refusal by the Court of Appeal of Rennes to register on the French civil registries the birth certificate of a child who was born in Canada as a result of a surrogacy procedure, and the recognition of parental relationship between that child and one of the applicants. In this case, both parents were a couple of men. The Cour de Cassation ruled in favour of the applicants and ordered the registration of the child's birth certificate on the French registries, designating both parents as fathers of the child.

Court name: Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Date of decision:

The Appellant’s appeal to prevent his deportation to Algeria was brought on Articles 3 and 8 ECHR grounds. The Appellant submitted that he was at real risk of destitution (Article 3) and / or would face very serious obstacles to his integration into Algeria on account of his mental health (Article 8). The Upper Tribunal refused the Article 3 ECHR part of the appeal but granted the appeal on Article 8 ECHR grounds. 

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Greece
Date of decision:

The applicant is a stateless Palestinian and unaccompanied minor who was granted asylum in Greece in 2016 together with his father and slibings. Due to neglect by the father, the applicant and his siblings were placed in care and the prosecutor decided it was in their best intersts to return to the Occupied Palestinian Territory to reunite them with their mother. The application concerns the decision to return him to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which the children were opposed to, the reception conditions in Greece, and the failure to appoint a guardian. The Court decided to strike the application as inadmissible as the applicant was no longer at risk of being returned to the Occupied Palestinian Territory when the decision was revoked by the authorities.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Italy
Date of decision:

This case concerns the initial refusal of the Italian authorities to recognise the applicant, a stateless person of Slovenian origin, as stateless. He complained this refusal resulted in him being unable to regularise his stay in Italy and constitutes a breach of Article 8 of the ECHR. The applicant also complained under Article 14 of the ECHR, citing discrimination in access to Italian nationality and under Article 13 due to the lack of an effective domestic remedy. The Court declared his application inadmissible, as it found that the applicant was no longer a victim of a violation because, after the application was submitted, an Italian court recognised his statelessness status in 2013.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Finland
Date of decision:

The applicant claimed that Finland violated Articles 8 and 14 ECHR when Finnish authorities allegedly arbitrarily denied him Finnish nationality, despite statements issued by the Russian authorities on his nationality status and the fact that he did not acquire Russian nationality at birth, contrary to the decision of the Finnish authorities based on their interpretation of Russian nationality law. The Court found the application manifestly ill-founded and therefore inadmissible, and held that the Russian authorities’ statements on the applicant’s nationality status, while ambiguous, could imply that he had acquired Russian nationality at the time of his birth.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: France
Date of decision:

The case concerns the refusal to grant legal recognition in France to parent-child relationships that had been legally established in the United States for a child born as a result of surrogacy arrangement. The French authorities refused to transcribe the birth certificate of the child into the French civil status registry on the grounds that it would be contrary to public order. The three applicants complained that the refusal to acknowledge the filiation of the parents and child applicant under French law violated Article 8 ECHR. The European Court of Human Rights found that France violated the child's right to respect for her private life in breach of Article 8 ECHR.

Court name: Raad van State (Council of State)
Date of decision:

In a case concerning a Dutch national associated with ISIS, the Council of State ruled that the decisions from the Dutch authorities to declare the applicant undesirable and to withdraw her Dutch nationality should be annulled on the grounds that they did not sufficiently take into consideration the best interests of her minor children and her right to family life.

Court name: Austrian Supreme Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgerichtshof, VwGH)
State: Austria
Date of decision:

The case concerns the unlawfulness of the deportation of a mother and her two daughters from Austria to Georgia. A reassessment from the court (at the time of the execution of the deportation) leads to the result that the circumstances in favour of the applicants have changed to such an extent that the deportation must be considered disproportionate.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Azerbaijan
Date of decision:

This case concerns the refusal of the Azerbaijani authorities to issue the applicant, who is of Azerbaijani ethnicity, lives in Azerbaijan and was born in Georgia, with an identity card, thereby denying him Azerbaijani citizenship. The applicant complained that this decision by the authorities was in breach of Article 8 of the ECHR. The Court found that the denial of Azerbaijani citizenship to the applicant had considerable adverse consequences for his enjoyment of various rights. It was not accompanied by the necessary procedural safeguards and must be considered arbitrary.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State:
Date of decision:

The case concerns two Swiss nationals in a registered same-sex partnership, who had a child in the United States through a surrogacy agreement. A US court had named both parents as the child’s legal parents, but Switzerland only recognised the parent-child relationship of the genetic father and not the intended father. The intended father was unable to adopt the legally-recognised child of his registered partner as this option was, until January 2018, only open to married (heterosexual) couples. The Court found a violation of the child's right to respect for private and family life (Article 8 ECHR).

Court name: Conseil d'État
State: France
Date of decision:

The removal of the parent of a stateless child who is not entitled to a residence permit can only be ordered for reasons of national security or public order. Otherwise, the removal of the parent would deprive the child of the rights and guarantees attached to the status of stateless person if the child accompanies his or her parents outside French territory in application of the removal order issued against the parents, or would disproportionately infringe on the right to family life of the parents, in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, if the child remains in France separated from his or her parents.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Azerbaijan
Date of decision:

Azerbaijani authorities refused to issue an identity card to children born in Azerbaijan to foreign parents, thereby denying them Azerbaijani nationality (as domestic law applicable at the time applied the jus soli principle). The Court held that the refusal by the national authorities to deliver an identity card to the children is tantamount to a refusal to recognise their Azerbaijani nationality. This had considerable negative consequences for the children and therefore constituted an interference with their right to a private life in violation of Article 8 ECHR. It further found that the necessary procedural guarantees were not in place and that the decision was arbitrary.

Court name: Fourth Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction of the Russian Federation (Четвертый Кассационный суд общей юрисдикции Российской Федерации)
Date of decision:

The applicant was born in an undisclosed Soviet Union Republic and moved to Russia in 1993. He held a temporary resident permit. He was convicted of a drug-related crime and sentenced to eight years in prison. The Ministry of Justice issued a decision on the "undesirability of his stay" in Russia. The Ministry of Internal Affairs followed up with a decision ordering his deportation as the applicant failed to leave Russia within the prescribed deadline. After being released from prison, the applicant was placed in a migration detention centre for 48 hours; this term was repeatedly extended by the court (prior to his eventual release). Russian authorities contacted Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities, both of which refused to grant the applicant entry as he was not a citizen of their respective countries. The applicant challenged both decision of the Ministry of Justice on the undesirability of his stay in Russia and the decision of Ministry of Internal Affairs ordering his deportation. The challenge was dismissed due to lack of legal grounds to declare the disputed decisions illegal.

Court name: Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Date of decision:

This appeal to the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber concerns the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s (hereinafter SSHD) decision to deprive the appellant of his British citizenship. The Upper Tribunal addressed the issue of whether Article 8(1) of the ECHR was engaged and whether the SSDH discretionary decision under section 40(2) or (3) to deprive the individual of his or her British citizenship was exercised correctly. The grounds for judicial review is that the delay in acting on the appellant’s fraud reduces the public interest in deprivation and is a disproportionate interference with Article 8 ECHR.

Court name: Conseil d'État
State: France
Date of decision:

Article 25 of the French Civil Code provides that an individual may be stripped of their French nationality where, inter alia, it was acquired by naturalization and where the individual has been convicted of a crime that constituted an attack on the fundamental interests of France or an act of terrorism. Deprivation of French nationality is not allowed where it would render the individual stateless. The applicant was deprived of his French nationality, which he had acquired by naturalization, following a decision of the Paris Criminal Court (Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris) convicting him for his participation in an association of criminals with a view to preparing an act of terrorism. That court found that he had joined a terrorist group and participated in training and armed operations of that group. The Council of State (Conseil d’État) upheld the decree of deprivation of nationality because the applicant held Algerian nationality since birth and could not be deprived of it since the Algerian code of nationality only authorises the deprivation of nationality for persons who have acquired it after birth. Therefore, the loss of French nationality would not render him stateless and was thus not illegal under French law. The Council of State also ruled on the proportionality of the decree with regard to the European Convention on Human Rights and found that, given the seriousness of the crimes committed by the applicant, the challenged decree did not disproportionately infringe the right to respect for his private life guaranteed by Article 8 of the ECHR.

Court name: Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Date of decision:

The case concerns a Belarusian individual who had entered the UK in 1998, whose asylum applications were refused and who spent the subsequent eighteen years in immigration bail as his identity could not be confirmed and he could not be deported to Belarus. He complained that the state of “limbo” in which he was as a result of his immigration bail constituted an infringement of his right to private life. He also alleged that he had become stateless as result of losing his Belarusian nationality. The court found that there was a violation of Article 8 of the ECHR. On the statelessness question, it was held he could not be considered a stateless person. 

Court name: Court of Justice of the European Union
State:
Date of decision:

The case concerned the interpretation of Article 19 of the Directive (2011/95/EU, Qualification Directive). Specifically, the applicant had been granted subsidiary protection by the Austrian authorities on the mistaken basis that he was an Algerian national. The applicant was not responsible for the mistake, having rather declared throughout the proceedings that he was stateless. The CJEU held that under the Qualification Directive a State is under the obligation to revoke subsidiary protection if information emerges to prove that an individual never satisfied the requirements under the Directive.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: Hungary
Date of decision:

A stateless person faced protracted difficulties in regularising his legal situation, and was recognised as stateless only after residing in Hungary for 15 years. During 13 of those years, the applicant had no legal status in Hungary and was entitled to neither healthcare nor employment, nor was he able to marry. The Court held that Hungary had not complied with its positive obligation to provide an effective and accessible procedure enabling the applicant to have his status in Hungary determined with due regard to his private-life interests under Article 8 ECHR.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
Date of decision:

The applicant challenged a decision depriving him of his British citizenship and excluding him from the United Kingdom because of his alleged involvement and link to terrorist-related activities. After failing in his appeals to the High Court, Court of Appeal and the Special Immigration Appeal Tribunal, the applicant complained to the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) under Articles 8 and 14. The Court rejected all of the applicant’s complaints, finding them to be manifestly ill-founded, and declared the application inadmissible.

Court name: ECtHR
Date of decision:

After discovering that the applicant had omitted information when applying for Russian nationality, his nationality was annulled and an entry ban was enforced. The Court applied a two-pronged approach to assess whether the deprivation of the applicant’s nationality was an interference with his right to private and family life, which assessed (i) the consequences for the applicant, and (ii) whether the measure was arbitrary. In light of the far-reaching consequences of this decision and its apparent arbitrary nature, the Court held that the annulment interfered with the applicant's rights guaranteed under Article 8 ECHR. Further, the Court found that the expulsion of the applicant from Russian territory failed to respect the principle of proportionality, given the lack of evidence of any threat to Russian national security posed by the applicant, thereby violating Article 8.

Court name: European Court of Human Rights
State: France
Date of decision:

Five applicants of dual nationality, convicted in 2007 of participating in a criminal association in a terrorist context, were stripped of their French nationality in October 2015 by Prime Minister decrees. The Court held that the decision to forfeit the applicants’ French nationality did not have a disproportionate impact on their private lives and therefore was not in violation of Article 8 of the Convention.